‘If 1.5m Germans have them there must be something in it’: how balcony solar is taking off
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My dumb ass: “Is it just 1.5m Germans, or other heights too?”
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Usually not uglier than the balcony itself.
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Oh boy, apparently there's a lot I don't know. It's really cool there are those cheaper options now.
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Nice numbers
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couple of things to note:
- Not every balcony is southern facing
- Most older European homes don't have A/C yet, so electrical costs are more during the winter months (that trend will change though I imagine)
- I think the numbers @[email protected] was asking about involved power output, that of course depends on the size of your array, daily/monthly/yearly differences in weather, and all sorts of little nuances that's hard to say without averaging out years worth of data.
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The rent seekers making everything worse again
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Makes sense mathematically or you think makes sense?
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Shoot, my electric is like $.0625/KWH
But there is also another 75-100 bucks tacked on as fees. Tempting to go solar and disconnect from the grid. Even without selling energy back to the grid, I would break even. (Savings over 20 years ~200 bucks)
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These microinverters aren’t made of fairy dust. Doing this stuff at utility scale uses a lot less nasty minerals and chemicals.
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Until I read this comment I was 100% certain the post was about short Germans somehow preferring having their balconies occluded by taller-than-them solar panels.
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"100 million smokers can't be wrong!"
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1.5 10^6 Germans vs 1.5 10^-3 Germans
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That kind of depends on what you're building. Standard is currently 800W (2 standard solar panels). Older models use 600W, other models are using 2000W and limit it to 800W. That doesn't make much sense, but skirts our local regulations that limits them to 800W, but of course generates more energy.
It then also depends on where you live. Can you point it to the sun? Do you live in sunny Spain or in northern Norway? In Germany a 800W system can produce 800-1200kWh per year. Our average electricity price is at 0.35€, so you'll save 280€-420€ a year. And those systems are dirt cheap, there are deals out there where you can get one for 200€. That is quite a good ROI for something that you can install in an hour.
